Thinking and Believinghttp://micahcobb.com/blog
Helping Christians live a thoughtful life of faithTue, 05 Dec 2017 19:41:27 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.422598870The Importance of Charity in the Bible: Deception and the Parable of the Rich Foolhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/micahcobb1/~3/RL-f_i8NJG8/
Mon, 25 Sep 2017 04:35:09 +0000http://micahcobb.com/blog/?p=4060This is the final post in a short blog series through Gary Anderson’s book,Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition. Though I don’t believe everything that Anderson argues, the book had enough insights that I wanted to share it with my readers. You can read part one here. You can read part two here

The Deceptions of Wealth

In the last article I mentioned that Anderson thinks a big obstacle to charity is that we feel financially insecure if we give our money away. Why? Because money deceives us. It gives us a false sense of security. So we horde it, hoping for security and joy.

We falsely believe that money provides security. Of course, we don’t see money as deceptive. We think it is morally neutral. Anderson writes, referencing the character from Tobit:

“Ben Sira does not believe that money is necessarily evil. As Bradley Gregory observes, what is morally significant is how one values it. But at the same time money is not an inert substance, indifferent to the one who possesses it. Rather, wealth exerts an almost eerie power over its possessor such that it is nearly impossible not be possessed by it.” (kindle location 1069)

A wealthy person can be generous. But it’s hard to be truly generous when wealthy. Money can steal your soul; it can make a strong claim on your attention and affections. But you are often not aware of it doing so.

Anderson concludes:

“Having money is tantamount to a spiritual ordeal whose outcome is determined by whether one has the courage to give it away.” (kindle location 1076)

So not only is money not a neutral object, but money can end up being a spiritual test for us. Our money tests where our faith is, where we put our security and hope. We will be much more willing to give the money away if we don’t have our faith, security, or hope in it.

What if you saw your money as a spiritual test or ordeal, testing your courage and faith to give it away? This is what we see in one of Jesus’s better-known parables: the Parable of the Rich Fool.

The Rich Fool (Luke 12)

Anderson’s exegesis of the Parable of the Rich Fool might be the most eye-opening part of his book. In fact, his exegesis is not just of that parable, but he shows how much of Luke 12 comes together to provide a rich view of money and almsgiving, a view that Anderson labors in his book to support.

Anderson wants to us to see Luke 12 in its full context. He writes:

“To interpret the parable of the Rich Fool properly it is important to see how it fits into its larger literary context. Jesus gives two important teachings in this section: first, he addresses the gathered crowd with a parable about the Rich Fool (unit B) who hoarded his money, and then he turns to his disciples and exhorts them not to worry about what they will eat or wear (C). Though these two units are different in focus, Jesus brings them together in his conclusion (D).” (kindle location 1155)

Go ahead. Read Luke 12 and notice these sections:

Unit B: Luke 12:13-21

Unit C: Luke 12:22-31

Unit D: Luke 12:32-34

One thing I appreciate about Anderson’s treatment about the rich fool is that it provides a convincing explanation of the failure of the rich fool. Why was the rich man foolish? The scriptures provide very little that we would consider foolish. There is no description of a lavish lifestyle or a relentless greed; we get no details about the needy or poor being ignored like Jesus’s earlier parable in Luke about the rich man and Lazarus. Instead, we only learn that the rich man had build more storage for goods and rested comfortably in his savings (in a state similar to what we would call “retirement”).

Reread the parable if you have not read it recently. Luke 12:13-21 says:

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

So what is the problem with the rich fool? The two sections that follow the parable — Units B and C — explain

Before we look at that, notice a couple of things about the parable:

In verse 20, God’s criticizes the rich fool because his stored goods will worthless when he dies.

In verse 21, Jesus says that what is true of the rich fool is true of everyone who stores up treasures for themselves. The problem that Jesus is pressing is how and why we store up treasures for ourselves.

In verse 21, the solution to the foolishness is being rich, but being “rich toward God.”

So we need some explanation that ties these three threads together. So let’s look at Luke 12:22-31.

Don’t Worry

In Luke 12:22-31, Unit C, Jesus says:

22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

27 “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 29 And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30 For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

Jesus’s comments that follow the Parable of the Rich Fool address his disciples’ relationship to money and possessions. They should not worry. Which means that in the parable, Jesus is probably addressing a person’s relationship to money and possessions, a relationship that can often turn to stress and worry. If fear is one of our greatest obstacle when it comes to helping the needy, then it makes sense for Jesus to address this fear in addressing the disciples’ relationship to money. Anderson writes:

“The second address, given to the disciples alone, goes a little bit deeper. Since they have given up everything to follow Jesus (unlike the individuals in the crowd, whose attachment to Jesus is not so all-consuming), they have ample reason to worry about the future. It is one thing to put false hopes in accumulated wealth, quite another to give it all away and greet the future without a penny to your name. Jesus assuages the disciples’ fears by returning to the imagery of the storehouse.” (kindle location 1178)

So, in addition to Jesus tells the disciples not to worry about money and clothing, he explains to them why they shouldn’t. As Anderson writes in the quotation above, Jesus explains it by using the “imagery of the storehouse” (or the treasury). But to see this, we have to see Jesus’s conclusion.

Jesus’s Conclusion

After Jesus addresses their relationship to money and possession, he concludes his teaching. His conclusion is important for our understanding of the Parable of the Rich Fool. Jesus concludes the parable in a way that makes sense of our earlier observations about the parable. In Luke 12:32-34, Jesus says:

32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Notice a few things about this conclusion:

Jesus concludes by addressing the disciples’ fears and assuring them that they will receive the Kingdom.

In verse 33, Jesus encourages giving to the poor. (While the Parable of the Rich Fool does not directly mention the man’s charity to the poor or lack thereof, this shows that the parable has to do with charity to the poor.)

In verse 33, Jesus’s command to give to the poor is explicitly connected with storing up “treasure in heaven” that we will always have access to.

Anderson further observes about these verses and their connection to the parable:

“For at the end of that parable, Jesus made a contrast between those who “store up treasures for themselves” and those who are “rich toward God.” The term that is used to describe the destination of one’s alms in our summary statement, “[unfailing] treasure” (thesauros, v. 33), is the same word that describes the fool’s hoarding of his resources, “who store up treasure for themselves” (thesaurizo, v. 21). Because being “rich toward God” is the opposite of laying up treasures for oneself, it must refer to the act of distributing goods to the poor. Moreover, the contrast between storing treasure for oneself as opposed to God recalls the antimony that was so basic to the way in which Proverbs 10:2 was read in both Ben Sira and Tobit.” (kindle location 1163)

So Anderson points out that the same for is used for the incorrect storing up of money on earth and the Jesus-approved method of storing up riches: giving to the needy.

This connection shows us the issue with the rich fool. There is no indication that he was greedy or ignored the plight of the poor. Those aren’t what make him foolish. He is foolish because he found his security in his stored goods. What gave him his sense of security in the future? God? No! His storehouses full of goods. So the problem was his misplaced sense of security.

What is interesting, though, is that the rich man is a fool not because he had riches or because he had stored up riches. The problem is (i) the type of riches he has and (ii) where he had stored up the riches. Jesus teaches his disciples that they should aim for the wealth that comes from helping the poor and that he stored up the wealth in his barns rather than the heavenly storehouses.

But why was the rich fool tempted to trust in his storehouses of earthly riches rather than a heavenly treasury of riches? Because he wasn’t thinking enough about the world to come, the world he’ll inhabit when he dies. Anderson writes:

“But he has forgotten to ponder the world to come. What value will wealth have for him there? Better to be rich toward God through charity than to have “stored up” (thesaurizo) many goods for oneself.” (kindle location 1213)

So the Rich Fool is not thinking enough about the world to come; he doesn’t realize the benefits that charity can have. He could store up for himself eternal treasure instead of his temporary, worthless-in-eternity treasures.

Conclusion

The Parable of the Rich Fool is, I think, a good place to end my overview of Gary Anderson’s book. Most of the main threads of his book come together in this parable: the false security that money gives; the treasury of heaven; the eternal value of giving to the poor; the way one’s faith is displayed in one’s generosity (or lack thereof).

Many Christians, myself among them, are ignoring the full biblical teaching on money. We are comfortable largely emulating our culture’s relationship to money. But Jesus himself taught that giving to needy Christians is giving to him. And he further taught that, in some way, giving to the poor wasn’t a loss of our treasures but a deposit of those treasures into a heavenly treasury.

The full biblical teaching on charity is convicting, because it speaks not just to our moral failings but also to the psychological reasons for those failures. Giving to the poor secures us more than storing up our money, since our charity lays up treasures for us in heaven, treasures that benefit us for eternity.

How many doctrines have we Chrsitians built around a verse or two? Anderson gives us more than one or two verses for a strong, full-blooded, and convicting view of charity.

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]]>4060http://micahcobb.com/blog/the-importance-of-charity-in-the-bible-deception-and-the-parable-of-the-rich-fool/The Importance of Charity in the Bible: Worship and Loaning to Godhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/micahcobb1/~3/w3PtZLCmp3I/
Fri, 15 Sep 2017 01:19:03 +0000http://micahcobb.com/blog/?p=4045I am continuing a short blog series through Gary Anderson’s book,Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition. Though I don’t believe everything that Anderson argues, the book had enough insights that I wanted to share it with my readers. You can read part one here.Photo Credit: Karl-Heinz Kasper Flickr via Compfightcc

Charity and Worship

The early church’s charity was connected to its worship. We discussed this in my earlier article. Charity to the poor wasn’t just another good deed, indistinguishable from other good Christian acts. It was a special religious act. But modern Christians often do not see charity to the poor in this way. Anderson writes:

“Most religious persons consider charity to the poor a natural outgrowth of their faith, something like the correlation between a good education and success in a career. In both cases what is primary, service to God/service to mind, has some beneficial but still secondary effects, love for the poor/advancement in society. But this is precisely what I don’t mean when I say that providing for the poor is avodah. By the close of the biblical period, service to the poor had become the privileged way to serve God.” (Kindle Location 297)

We need to see charity in a better context. We need to see helping the poor as a religious act. Anderson references a Christian artwork, Joachim and the Beggar, which depicts the connection between almsgiving and worship. Anderson writes:

“In Christian tradition, Joachim is the father of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is considered to be a very pious Jew. One can, indeed, see Joachim distributing goods to the poor. Nonetheless, the labeling is incomplete because it fails to mention that Joachim’s wife, Anna, who is standing right beside him, is donating a jar of grain to the priest. Through the hands of this couple, God is served in two ways: by a direct gift to the temple and by the giving of alms. Service to the altar and the poor is a correlative activity.” (Kindle Location 389)

Early Christian preachers used this theological connection to urge their congregations towards almsgiving. John Chrysostom told his congregation that a poor believer on the streets is like an altar, a place you can worship God. Quoting sections of Chrysostom’s comments, Anderson writes:

“But this is not the only altar to be found in Antioch. “Whenever then you see a poor believer,” out on the streets of Antioch after Mass has ended, “imagine that you behold an altar. Whenever you meet a beggar, don’t insult him, but reverence him.” (Kindle Location 408)

In fact, Chrysostom used this theological insight to confer a certain dignity on the poor. If giving to a poor is an act of worship, then the poor should be revered as a place we encounter God.

I know, we still need scriptural support for this, but what if Chrysostom is correct? Our view of the poor would change radically. Helping the poor would be a blessing to us, not a burden. We would not see them as failures, losers, or drags on society. Instead, in helping the poor, we encounter our Creator.

From Tithe to Worship

What Scriptures link charity to the poor and worship? One place to see this is the Old Testament connection between tithing and charity. Then, when we see that tithes and worship are connected, we can see the connection between tithes and worship. This connection is what developed so that Chrysostom could call a beggar an altar for the worship of God.

Anderson writes about Deuteronomy’s teachings on tithing:

“According to Deuteronomy, one must bring a tithe to the sanctuary during years one, two, four, and five of a seven-year cycle (14:22–27). That tithe was to be consumed by the donor and his family in Jerusalem during the days of the festivals. In addition, a portion of that tithe was to be shared with the Levites, who had no arable land of their own. In years three and six, this regular festival tithe was replaced by a tithe for the poor.” (Kindle Location 435)

Now look at Deuteronomy 14:22-29:

“22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. 24 But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the Lord will choose to put his Name is so far away), 25 then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. 26 Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice. 27 And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.
“28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.”

There is a connection between tithes and giving to the needy. On the third and sixth years (“every three years”), all the tithes were to be stored in the towns rather than the temple or tabernacle. Why? So that the Levites without allotment or inheritance would have would have food. But also so that the “foreigners, the fatherless and the widows” could eat. These groups of people would often be in need. So the tithes in the third and sixth years were partly charity for the poor.

But we still need to see the connection between this third and sixth year tithe and worship. After all, maybe the tithes for those years wouldn’t be considered an act of worship. But Deut. 26:12ff portrays the tithes on these years as worship:

“12 When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied. 13 Then say to the Lord your God: ‘I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, according to all you commanded. I have not turned aside from your commands nor have I forgotten any of them. 14 I have not eaten any of the sacred portion while I was in mourning, nor have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor have I offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the Lord my God; I have done everything you commanded me. 15 Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey.'”

The tithe on the third and sixth years — the tithe given to the widows, orphans, and foreigners — is still referred to as a “sacred portion.” Anderson writes:

“It is striking that this text continues to refer to the tithe as a “sacred portion”—language normally reserved for donations to the altar—even though it is never taken to Jerusalem.” (Kindle Location 462)

So you can see the connection between worship and giving to the poor. What was normally “sacred” and given to the altar is still sacred when given to the needy. Charity and worship are connected. But even more is connected to the tithe. Deut. 14:29b says the following as a motivation for giving the tithe to the poor and needy:

“and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.”

Deut. 26:15 includes in the prayer to God, prayed when giving the sacred portion, an appeal that God bless His people as He had promised them. It’s not explicit, but I think you can begin to see something that is more clearly seen in other passages: what is given to the poor ends up being returned to the giver as a blessing from God.

A Loan to God

At the end of the last section, I brought out the nascent connection between giving to the poor and receiving blessings from God. Anderson thinks that the Bible portrays charity to the poor as a loan to God, not merely as worship. The connection goes something like this: tithes were an offering to God, and the priest “transferred” that offering to God; likewise, giving giving a tithe to the poor was an offering to God, and the poor “transferred” that to God. But what is God going to do with the money? Return blessings to the giver.

Why think this? We could see it in the Mark 10 story of the Rich Man. Jesus tells the rich man in Mark 10:21:

“And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.'”

If he gives to the poor, he will have treasure in heaven. We could understand that as a spiritualized phrase that just means salvation. But the idea of a treasury in heaven has Old Testament roots. Instead, Jesus tells the rich man that God will give him treasure in return if he donates to the poor. (This interpretation need not view the treasure in heaven strictly as physical blessings.) This would make charity to the poor similar to a loan to God: you give to God by giving to the poor, and God eventually repays you.

We see this in Proverb 19:17:

“Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.”

Generosity to the poor is a loan to God; God will repay. This understanding is brought out in a midrash from the rabbinic tradition. It says:

“Well then, isn’t the scriptural commandment logical: If you will issue the loan when the governor cosigns, how much more willing should you be when ‘He who spoke and made the world’ agrees to cosign. For scripture says, ‘Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and will be repaid in full'” (Prov 19:17). (Kindle Location 515)

And some early Christians saw matters this way. John Chrysostom wrote:

“If one of the rich men in the city would promise you payment on behalf of another, wouldn’t you accept his pledge?” The implied answer, as in the midrash, is undoubtedly ‘Yes!’ Who wouldn’t make a loan that was guaranteed by a man of means? This leads Basil to his main point: ‘Yet you don’t accept God as surety for the gift you would give to the poor.’ In exasperation over this lack of faith, Basil urges his audience to show faith in God and open up their pocket books: ‘Give the money, since it is lying idle, without weighing it down with additional charges, and it will be good for both of you. There will be for you [the donor] the assurance of the money’s safety because of [God’s] custody; for [the poor] who receives it, there is the advantage of its use. And, if you are seeking additional payment, be satisfied with that from the Lord. He Himself will pay the interest for the poor. Expect kindly acts from Him who is truly kind.'” (Kindle Location 534)

So giving to the poor is a loan to God, who, since He is the Creator and Sustainer of the world, can guarantee repayment. If giving to the poor is a loan to God, then what reasons can you give for not being generous towards the poor?

Your Faith and Your Loan to God

To answer that last question, many of us share a reason with the biblical people for not giving money to the poor: we don’t want to lose money. Giving to the poor leaves less money for us. We are more vulnerable to financial problems. But sometimes we don’t give money to the poor because we worry that the poor person will take advantage of our generosity. Maybe the beggar is exaggerating his or her need, or maybe the beggar will use the donated money for drugs or alcohol. That money would then be lost because it is wasted.

In our world, the generous are worse off because they gave.

Anderson writes:

“For ancient persons did not instinctively view the world as ordered to the flourishing of those who were generous. For them, just as for many evolutionary biologists, the world often manifested itself as ‘red in tooth and claw.’ It took a considerable amount of faith to act as though things were different.” (Kindle Location 565)

The ancients were no more trusting than we are. So it was just as hard for them to believe that giving money away to others would bring us blessings, not more financial difficulties. Being charitable was probably more difficult for the ancients than for us. They had fewer resources than we do and were more financially vulnerable than us. But they were still encouraged to give.

In these cultures, aid to the poor was often given through loans. So loaning money to the poor was quite the risk, because of everyone they were the least able to repay the loan. In fact, Anderson references a teacher who had an even more radical demand than that his students be generous. He writes:

“The demand is far more radical: Ben Sira exhorts his students to lose their money on behalf of the poor. No pretense is made that the funds will be returned.” (Kindle Location 865)

Of course, no pretense is make that the funds would be returned by the needy person. But it does seem that it would be returned in the form of blessings from God. But even though charity meant risking money, it was still a “privileged” religious act. Anderson writes:

“Paradoxically what constitutes an almost certain loss of wealth in earthly terms becomes the privileged means of securing it in heaven. Ben Sira introduces an idea that will emerge as a key theme in the preaching of Jesus—the treasury in heaven.” (Kindle Location 871)

So how were people motivated to give in the face of possible loss of the money? Two ways:

1. Expressions of Faith

People were encouraged to see charity to the poor, though a risk, as an expression of faith. It communicated something about what you believed about God and the world He created. Anderson writes:

“What is to be carefully noted in this passage is the supernatural dimension of showing monetary kindness to others. By issuing a loan into the headwinds of the upcoming year of remission—an ‘irrational’ act if there ever was one—the pious Israelite demonstrates his faith that God will reward in like manner.” (Kindle Location 898)

He says about the teacher referenced earlier:

“What Ben Sira does not explicitly say, though it can be clearly inferred, is that his teaching can be trusted only to the degree that one has faith in God.” (Kindle Location 939)

This is a challenging insight. God commanded us to give to the poor without worrying about whether we will be repayed because God is going to repay us. So the extent that you trust God is demonstrated by how much you’ll trust him in giving to the needy. Anderson puts it this way:

“Or to put it another way, the safety of the divine treasury is a dependable notion only for those who have a deep faith in God. If it were otherwise, everyone would be in a race to share their goods with the poor. Almsgiving, it turns out, becomes an extraordinary index of the faith (Glaube) of the believer (Gläubige) through his financial generosity as a creditor (Gläubiger).” (Kindle Location 942)

2. Storing Up Treasures in Heaven

But the ancients had another motivation for giving to the poor, even when the loan to the poor might not be returned. I have already mentioned this, but the view of a treasury in heaven also motivated their generosity. If you believed that, in some sense, the money you gave to the poor was “stored” for you in heaven and would be returned to you someday, then generosity would not be a risk. So the Scripture authors motivate charity despite the risk of loaning money to the poor by denying that charity is even a monetary risk. The money is going to be returned. Anderson writes:

“Paradoxically what constitutes an almost certain loss of wealth in earthly terms becomes the privileged means of securing it in heaven. Ben Sira introduces an idea that will emerge as a key theme in the preaching of Jesus—the treasury in heaven.” (Kindle Location 871)

Conclusion

So we have seen in this extensive survey of some of the arguments in Anderson’s book that the biblical theology of money and generosity. The theology undergirding this view of helping the poor is powerful and calls us to deeper reflection on our commitment to the poor. If Anderson is right about these biblical teachings and concepts, then much about the American Christian’s view of money, charity, and the poor needs to change.

In the next article, I’ll conclude this summary of Anderson’s book by looking at his compelling analysis of the Parable of the Rich Fool.

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]]>4045http://micahcobb.com/blog/the-importance-of-charity-in-the-bible-worship-and-loaning-to-god/The Importance of Charity in the Bible: Metaphysics and Rewardshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/micahcobb1/~3/JlcWoyIEWcY/
Sun, 06 Aug 2017 04:24:01 +0000http://micahcobb.com/blog/?p=4041At the recommendation of a friend who is deeply involved in poverty relief, earlier this year I read Gary Anderson’s, Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition. The book’s development of the Bible’s teachings on poverty relief is insightful and convicting. I took a few college students through the material, so I wanted to turn my notes into a short series for this blog. Not everything in the book was convincing, but enough was to make the book’s material worth revisiting in these articles.
Photo Credit: Karl-Heinz Kasper Flickr via Compfightcc

Ignoring Scripture

Gary Anderson’s central insights challenge how many Christians view helping the poor. Anderson doesn’t cover sociology, economics, or political theory; his focus is biblical teachings. The richness of the biblical view, though, has been ignored by many Christians. It is ignored, in part, because we are often not attentive to certain phrases. Or, when we pay attention to them, we reduce them to merely figurative language because of our fears of works righteousness. For example, in the famous story of the rich ruler in Mark 10, Jesus tells him:

“One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (v. 21 NIV)

I’ve taught on this passage a half-dozen times. When I’ve paid attendion to the phrase, “treasure in heaven,” I’ve often reduced it to salvation. But I’ve ignored a connection that the text brings out clearly: being charitable to the poor is what gives the man treasure in heaven. I skipped over the connection between charity and treasures in heaven. And the connection shows up elsewhere in the Bible. Our concerns over “works righteousness” in evangelical Christianity makes us nervous to connect a person’s works with rewards in heaven. But however you work this into your view of justification, you at least have to deal with Jesus’s connection between charity to the poor and treasure in heaven.

The Purpose of the Book

Anderson writes about the purpose of his book:

“In this book I will examine in far greater depth the origins of almsgiving as a highly privileged religious act within the nascent religions of Judaism and Christianity.” (p. 2)

Anderson doesn’t simply argue that Christians should give to the poor. Every Christian knows that. But he argues in the book that charitable acts have a “special status.” They aren’t just other acts of righteousness, but should have a place of honor in our lives. Would an observer of your life believe that helping the poor is an important part of your life? Would your life undoubtably show that charity is a “highly privileged” activity within your own life?

One value of Anderson’s book is the healthy pressure it can put on a Christian or a church. As we look at biblical passages that display the value of charity, ask yourself if the this value is reflected in your life and in your church?

The Metaphysics of Helping the Poor

Throughout the book, Gary Anderson returns often to the claim that charity is a declaration about the nature of God and the nature of the world he made. Most Christians I know don’t think about charity this way. We see it as a religious duty, obedience to God’s commands, or even just an expression of Christian love. Anderson would not deny any of those. But he thinks charity is much more than that. He writes:

“What concerns me is what the writers of this period thought almsgiving told us about the identity of God and the peoples who claimed to worship him. Though this is clearly the dominant interest of our textual sources as well—ancient Christians and Jews wrote so extensively about almsgiving because they thought the practice said something crucial about the character of God and the world he created and sustains–it has been surprisingly understudied.” (p. 2)

Or, as Anderson puts it most succintly:

“Charity, in short, is not just a good deed but a declaration of belief about the world and the God who created it.” (p. 4)

So what does Anderson mean? Through this article and my next two, I hope you’ll see the full explanation of his claim. But most of you have enough knowledge of Christianity to understand his central point. If you give money away, even when it is a threat to your financial security, out of the trust that God has promised to reward you, then you displaying your belief that:

A God exists who will reward you for your generosity; and

This world is set up to ultimately benefit the generous not the stingy.

And Anderson thinks that your use of wealth and charity are such displays.

An Interesting Implication

I understand that you need to see the Bible verses and the arguments to support this. But momentarily accept that Anderson is correct. If our generosity towards the poor is a statement about God and the type of world He created, what is your generosity displaying about God? What is your church’s generosity saying about God?

Many of us have to admit, I think, that our (lack of) generosity declares loudly that we don’t really believe that a god exists who will reward our generosity. Anderson says this in a challenging way:

“Compared with what the financial analyst can promise, imitating the generosity of God would seem to be fraught with far greater risk. Lending to God in this fashion might better be conceived of as a means for the religious believer to enact what he professes, putting his money where his mouth is.” (p. 5)

I’ve always been amazed with the examples of faith in Hebrews 11. All the people mentioned lived such lives that, if God didn’t exist, their lives would be foolish. Is our charity at such a level that if the Christian God doesn’t exist, then our handling of money would be foolish? Does your faith lead you to acts of charity that nonbelievers would mock? If a greater reward did not come, would your generosity look financially foolish?

The Reward of Charity

But what reward do the scriptures promise for charity? To see the reward that we receive from charity, we need to look at two verses that Anderson expounds.

Proverbs 10:2

Anderson’s argument from Proverbs 10:2 loses some of its force because he uses his own translation of the verses. In Proverbs 10:2 in the NIV says,

Ill-gotten treasures have no lasting value, but righteousness delivers from death.

Anderson claims that in various periods in the biblical times, almsgiving was such an important and honored religious practice that the word “righteousness” was often used to refer specifically to almsgiving.

So Anderson argues that in Proverbs 10:2 “righteousness” is really reference to almsgiving. So Anderson translates Proverbs 10:2 in this way:

Anderson calls this the most important proverb for “our purposes” (p. 3). If Anderson’s translation is accurate, then think about what this proverb teaches. If you sense an implied parallel between “treasuries of wickness” and “almsgiving,” you get a sense from this verse that can be captured in the following paraphrase:

“Storing up wickedness provides no benefit, but storing up almsgiving delivers from death.”

Almsgiving somehow protects from death. If we understand this to be a spiritual death, then we get the idea that almsgiving somehow saves from spiritual death. We will return to this notion in a later post in this series.

Matthew 25:31-46

To get a better of a theology of charity, Anderson thinks we should turn to Matthew 25:31-46, of which he writes:

“By far the most important text for the early church is found in Matthew 25.”

Go read Matthew 25:31-46 if you are not familiar with it. It is part of an extended message that Jesus gave his disciples towards the end of Matthew. In it, he envisions the Day of Judgment. The Son of Man separates the sheep from the goats. Jesus describes the sheep–the righteous–as those who clothed, visited, and fed him when he was in need. The goats–the unrighteous–are those who neglected Jesus when he was in need.

The goats, understandably, say to Jesus (mirroring a question the righteous had already asked about themselves):

‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ (v. 44b)

And Jesus’s response was (again, mirroring his response in his exchange with the righteous):

He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ (v. 45)

Jesus ends this section with this haunting phrase:

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (v. 46)

So what does this mean for almsgiving? What are the implications for charity? Helping the poor is, somehow, an encounter with the Son of God, a divine encounter. Additionally, Jesus states a connection between charity and salvation and the lack of charity and damnation. As Anderson writes:

“first, charity to poor has the power to deliver one from eternal damnation…, and second, charity acquires such power because one meets Christ through this concrete action of showing mercy. For early Christians this was not just a metaphor; the church proclaimed that one actually encountered the presence of God in the poor.” (p. 6)

What would happen if we really believed that we were meeting and serving God in serving the poor? What would happen if we really believed there was a strong connection between charity and salvation?

From what we have seen so far, I think we can see why Anderson says this:

“The poor become a necessary and indeed nonnegotiable point of access to the Kingdom of God.” (p. 3)

What does it mean for the poor to become a “nonnegotiable point of access to the Kingdom of God”? It means what a straightforward reading of Matthew 25 says. If we ignore the needs of the poor, we do not have access to the Kingdom of God. If, in compassion, we meet the needs of the poor, we have access to the Kingdom of God (along with an encounter, in some sense, with Jesus).

The Effects of the Reformation

One of the more provocative claims early in Anderson’s book is that the Protestant Reformation caused Christians to drop a richer understanding of charity. Why? Remember that a charitable act towards the poor is supposed to (i) be an encounter with God, and (ii) deliver one from (spiritual) death.

But the Reformation rejected both of these aspects because there was a concern that it was too sacramental and too close to works-righteousness. Anderson writes:

“The charitable deed lost, in the sixteenth century, its central role making God present to the believer and became simply a sign of the underlying personal faith of the believer.” (p. 8)

We Protestants need to wrestle with what Anderson says here. We often see charity (and many other good deeds) as mere signs that we have “saving faith” — the type of faith necessary for salvation.

But is this the correct way to for us to see charity? Should charity have a privileged place in our Christian lives? Is charity for the poor more than just a sign of our faith, but an act in which we encounter God?

These are the types of questions we need to think about as we work through Anderson’s material in the next two articles.

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Americans are stressed. We are a wealthy nation. We have the world’s best military and aren’t worry about invasions. We might have a broken healthcare system, but Americans receive better healthcare than most others in our world. Yet we have high stress levels.

In fact, this does not seem to be improving with millenials. I work with 18-25 year olds, and most of them are stressed. According to the American Psychological Association, millenials are more stressed than other generations. Since I work with millenials, I’ve had many opportunities to help people deal with their stress. In this article, I want to share my main advice.

Before I give my advice, here are some caveats. I typically talk to people who are stressed about interviews, grades, or their relationships (I work with college students, after all). So this advice would work best for similar kinds of stress. And I’m not a psychologist. I did manage to get an ‘A’ in Introduction to Psychology without going to more than two lectures. But that was because the class was easy, not because I have prowess in psychology. So approach my advice with some healthy skepticism. If it clicks with you and manages to work, then good. If not, forget you’ve ever read this.

Where I Developed My Advice

I developed this advice after noticing a two things:

First, I heard countless people try to help others with their stress. I saw the common advice and saw how it worked — or, more accurately, how it didn’t work.

Second, for years I have seen someone close to me successfully deal with immensely stressful situations. I have learned from them how they deal with stress.

So let me begin by telling you the normal advice for how to deal with stress and why it doesn’t work.

The Typical Way to Deal with Stress

Imagine a college student named John. John has graduated college and is looking for a job. He also has managed to get a series of job interviews. He’s worked hard at his degree and is excited about starting his career. But he is nervous that he won’t get a job, especially after his series of interviews. John’s self-doubt is at an all-time high. He isn’t sure he is skilled enough or experienced enough to get a job.

So how do most of John’s friends help him with his stress? They say, “Don’t worry, John! You’ll certainly get a job.”

I understand why most people respond this way. The obvious way to help a friend anxious that he won’t get a job is to assure him that he will get a job. But have you seen what this does to worried people like John, particularly those with lower levels of self-confidence? Their friends’ insistence that they will get a job raises the stakes. Now if they do not get a job, it makes them look even more incompetant.

Think this through with another example. Imagine a person nervous about failing a test. If she doubts that she will pass, assuring her that she’ll pass increases her anxiety. If she fails the test now, she’ll prove herself to be dumber than her friends think.

So the way that people normally try to assuage other’s stress does not work. Or, at least, it does not work in most situations.

How to Deal With Stress

So how can you deal with stress differently? Here is how I advise people to handle their stress. Instead of assuring them that they will succeed, I help them see that the failure they fear is not that frightening. I try to make them comfortable with failure. I don’t want to increase the stakes. I want to lower them.

I learned this from someone who, out of everyone I know, handles stress better than others. This guy’s life has chaos and many potential stressors, but he hardly ever seems stressed. Over the years, I have learned that he normally just lowers the stakes. He convinces himself that failure won’t be that bad. He becomes comfortable with outcomes others would be worrying about.

Take the earlier hypothetical case of John. If I were talking with John, I would make not getting a job from these interviews sound better than John currently envisions. I might stress how little money one initially needs after graduating. Or how a few months without a 9-5 would give him flexibility he would never again have in his life. I would also tell him about my friends who didn’t get jobs on their first round of interviews but ended up in great jobs. As for the student worried about a passing a test, I would tell her that the grade is not as important as she thinks. It usually is not.

I think there are good reasons to minimize one’s fear of failure. First, we tend to overestimate the unhappiness we will feel when something doesn’t go our way. Failure is not typically as traumatic as we think. Second, for those of us with religious beliefs, God still works and blesses our lives, even if we fail at a goal or task. So helping someone get more comfortable with failure can help to reduce that person’s stress levels.

Doesn’t This Encourage Faliure?

You might think I’m encouraging failure by helping stressed-out people become more comfortable with failure. But I’m not. I think this advice actually does the opposite. Stressed-out and worried people are more likely to do poorly on an interview or a test. Anxiety tpyically interferes with good performance. So, oddly, if I can make a person okay with failure, then I can increase his chances of actually succeeding. His stress is no longer holding him back.

So the Next Time…

So the next time you feel stressed about a situation, don’t try to convince yourself that the situation will turn out how you want it. Instead, work hard to convince yourself that everything will be okay even if the situation doesn’t turn out the way you want. I think you’ll find your stress levels decreasing as you come to accept that failure won’t be so bad. And, paradoxically, you will be more likely to succeed.

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]]>4031http://micahcobb.com/blog/how-to-deal-with-stress-and-anxiety/How a Strict View of the Clarity of Scripture Leads to Christian Divisionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/micahcobb1/~3/QNsNQm1K0Tk/
Fri, 14 Apr 2017 02:34:16 +0000http://micahcobb.com/blog/?p=4022I grew up in churches which stem from the American Restoration Movement. In our history, we had great concern for the way churches were divided. But many within this movement thought that the centuries of creeds and disputes and theological interpretation were, despite good intentions, accretions that kept us from seeing clear teachings of the Bible. We thought that the way toward doctrinal unity was pushing past the muddled history of creeds and doctrinal disputes and getting to the clarity of the Bible. This can sound condescending, as if we could look at the denominational leaders, tell them they simply needed to read the Bible alone, and these leaders would finally understand Christian truths. It could sound like a couch potato telling their favorite but struggling NBA team that they just need to get back to fundamentals. (Don’t the professional athletes know the fundamentals?) But this was no naive ecumenicalism, which thought that one could brush the disputed doctrines and practices under the rug and pretend like all the churches were united. We thought that true unity would be through an open-minded, fresh reading of the Bible.

But, somehow, this commitment to the Bible led to our group becoming one of the most divided and divisive Christian groups. How did that happen?

Though this issue is complex and involves issues like anti-intellectualism, our Biblical hermeneutics, and social divisions, there is one way of thinking that contributed to this.

The problem was our strong commitment to the Bible’s meaning being very clear.

This might make you uncomfortable. The clarity of the Bible (or, to use the technical terminology, the perspicuity of Scripture) is an important assumption of evangelicalism. Everyone can understand the Bible, we often say. As one preacher told me in the midst of a heated discussion, he thought that even a fairly uneducated man who spends his day riding a tractor on his farm can understand the Bible if he just reads it “without the opinions of men.” He didn’t need any knowledge of biblical scholarship or Greek.

Think about what this teaching means for Christian unity amidst Christian disagreement. If the Bible’s message were difficult to understand on that point, we would just chalk it up to a disagreement on a difficult, complicated, and somewhat confusing topic. We would even try to discuss and dialogue more so that we could collectively come to understand these difficult to understand doctrines. If the Bible’s teachings are clear, though, than you only have two real options for those who disagree with you on any topic: either they are stupid, or they are evil.

Let me explain: if the Bible’s teachings on any subject are simply clear to any normal person who reads and studies the Bible, then what does that say about the person who doesn’t understand it? It says they might be too stupid to understand the Biblical teachings. If the average person can understand the Bible’s teachings on a particular doctrine, then someone who cannot understand the same passage is ignorant. They are simply incapable at thinking at a high enough level to understand this Biblical teaching.

But what if the person isn’t stupid or uninformed? What if you know they have read the right passages and have access to enough resources to be able to understand the passage? What if you know they are intelligent? You would then have someone who looks at the appropriate Scriptures, can understand the passage properly if they so choose, but who is still mistaken about the Bible doctrine in question. The only serious option left is that the person is willfully misunderstanding the Bible and choosing to believe something false about God or some other topic.

Notice, then, what happens. When you think that a certain teaching of the Bible is clear, then you are forced to categorize someone who disagrees with you on that topic as either evil or stupid. That’s dangerous. And destructive. You cannot have unity with others if you think your disagreements with them are due to their stupidity or their sinfulness.

This is one reason that my Christian tradition became so divided. When churches fall into the mindset that everything they teach –– or at least everything they hold near and dear –– is plainly taught in Scriptures, they have already laid the foundation for sectarianism and disunity. There is no room for listening to those with whom we disagree and working toward a shared belief. There is only room for teaching and correcting those with whom we disagree.

Accepting the Bible Isn’t Clear

What if we just accepted that the Bible is not very clear? What if we just accepted that there are some teachings in the Bible that are difficult? That people rightly divide over them, because the evidence (even if it actually tilts in one direction) is within a reasonable, faithful person’s margin of error?

This requires us to be humble. This requires us to go to discussions to learn and not only to teach. But it will keep us from insulting other Christians and dividing from them.

Let me place a caveat here: I am not saying that every sentence of the Bible is opaque, hard to understand and apply. Many, maybe even most, parts of the Bible are clear. But there’s quite a distance between everything in the bible is crystal clear and some parts are not clear.

Some Important Caveats

First, the illumination of the Holy Spirit has to be accounted for. The Holy Spirit helps guide God’s people towards the truth. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t teach us everything little detail. I used to misunderstand that teaching. I remember once hearing someone say that the Holy Spirit guided Christians into truth. I pointed out that this person disagreed on some doctrines with one of his close friends. “Which one of you,” I asked, “isn’t listening to the Holy Spirit?” But that is not how the church has historically conceived of it. We read the Bible and discuss theology. We alter our views when we need to do so. And the church has disagreements. But the Holy Spirit is working within the church (usually in a way beyond our awareness of it) guide us into the truth. Paul said Philippians 3:15, “All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.” Paul taught that God was working to make the Philippians Christians aware of the truth. But he also taught that was consistent with the Christians not being fully taught now.

Second, a teaching doesn’t have to be clear for its denial to be considered a heresy. For centuries, Christians have been discerning what the Holy Spirit is teaching us. With some issues, Christian tradition has seen in God’s revelation a certain truth that is so important that its denial is heresy. I have often been tempted toward saying that these doctrines — the ones whose denial is considered a heresy — should be clearly taught in the Bible. I don’t currently hold this position. Instead, I think something is a heresy when it is a denial of a crucial Christian truth, not necessarily a clear Christian truth. Many of the Trinitarian and Christological heresies are not clearly wrong; but they get something critically wrong.

And So…

And so, we have to be more exacting when we discuss the clarity (or perspicuity) of the bible. Can God’s people understand it well enough — is it clear enough? — for them to honor God with their lives? Yes. Is it clear enough for the average person to read and be encouraged by it? Yes. But is it clear enough that anyone who disagrees on any Christian teaching is thereby stupid or evil? No!

We must walk the narrow path between believing the bible is too opaque for the average person and thinking that anyone who disagrees with me is evil or stupid. That’s a tough path to walk in practice, with many questionable cases and much wisdom and grace needed. But narrow is the way.

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]]>4022http://micahcobb.com/blog/how-a-strict-view-of-the-clarity-of-scripture-leads-to-christian-division/George Washington’s Secret Six: A Reviewhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/micahcobb1/~3/W72_akLHuuw/
Wed, 08 Mar 2017 04:46:15 +0000http://micahcobb.com/blog/?p=4017For Christmas, my wife gave me a copy of Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger’s George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution. Like thousands of other people, we have been enjoying AMC’s Turn, which is a television series based on the subject-matter of the book. Watching the show sparked a renewed interest in the American Revolution, prompting me to begin reading histories of that time period.

The book is a short read, and I recommend it to anyone who watches the show and wants a history of the spy ring. Even if you don’t watch the show, I think you would find the story of the spy ring interesting. Here were a few people trying to provide information about British troop movements to Washington. Their lives were in danger – Nathan Hale had been killed in Manhattan for spying in the months preceding the formation of this spy ring – and they were amateurs. The pressures they would have been under would have been tremendous. One of the members was forced to provide quarters to the British troops, and other members served soldiers daily during their day job. They had to find ways of smuggling information from under the nose of thousands of British soldiers, and they developed secret codes and used invisible ink to do so. Interestingly, at the end of the book the authors report that they learned that the CIA used the history of the spy ring to introduce people to espionage methods (215). To complicate matters, the British forces set up their own spy ring, partly to discover the American spys around Manhattan.

The most famous part of the American Revolution that the spy ring affected involved Benedict Arnold. The spy ring did not uncover the plot that Arnold was hatching, but their information helped the Americans put the pieces together when they captured the British epionage leader who had letters from Benedict Arnold on him.

What Bothered Me

As I said, I do recommend this book. But there were a few things that bothered me.

First, the way that Turn altered the story. Okay. I know that htis isn’t the authors’ fault. But it did impact my enjoyment of the book. I wasn’t frustrated at Kilmeade and Yaeger. I was simply frustrated that the writers of Turn felt the need to alter the story the way they did. For example, they switched the storylines of Abraham Woodhull and Robert Townsend. Since I went into the book assuming that Turn was more accurate than it really was (someone told me it was very historically accurate), I didn’t expect this. The cognitive dissonance confused me at first. I did get over this. And, again, this is not the authors’ fault and should not keep you from reading the book. It is something to be aware of, though, before you start the book.

“Much of the dialogue contained in this book is fictional, but it is based on conversations that did take place and, wherever possible, incorporates actual phrases used by the speaker.” (xiii)

I understand why the authors chose to do this. For the average person, it probably makes the book more engaging. But I usually don’t like this in history books. Why? It is simply that I don’t know what was a historical statement and what was fictionalized. Since the authors used “acutal phrases used by the speaker,” this makes it even more difficult. Part of the dialogue is historical; part isn’t. How am I supposed to tell them apart? I would like to know what was really said by those involved. I kept wondering throughout the book if Washington really thought what was being expressed in the dialogue, or was it part of the authors’ imagination. It’s not even that I want to know if he used the exact phrase in the dialogue, but I found myself wondering if Washington even had the sentiment or thought expressed in a particular piece of dialogue.

Third, I would have liked for the book to be more detailed. The authors don’t pretend to give a comprehensive history of the spy ring, so this doesn’t hurt my overall recommendation for the book. Nor do I think they failed in their task. I just have a preference for historical details.

Still Educational

But despite the brevity of the book and the lack of historical detail I prefer, it still informed me about events during the Revolutionary War of which I was previously unaware.

The Danger to Women

For example, I had never thought about the danger to women of the increased number of British soldiers who came to America during the war. But the women of Long Island, which was occupied by British soldiers for most of the American Revolution, faced constant danger. On page 48, the authors write:

“All around the British-occupied areas of New York and New Jersey, reports of attacks upon local women by both individual soldiers and groups of the garrisoned troops were made with startling regularity as early as the summer of 1776. Many cases were hadnled with a casual nonchalance as simply part of the collateral damage of war.”

On the same page, he proceeds to quote from a letter written by a British calvary officer. The letter says:

“”The fair nymphs of this isle are in wonderful tribulation, as the fresh meat that our men have got here has made them as riotous as satyrs. A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most imminent risk of being ravished, and they are so little accustomed to these vigorous methods that they don’t bear them with the proper resignation, and of consequence we have most entertaining courts-martial every day.”

The war, as most wars are, had to be truly terrifying to the women of the Colonies.

John Champe

I have never heard of John Champe before, but his mission is one of the most interesting of the American Revolution. John Champe volunteered for a secret mission, which he learned about only after being chosen. Benedict Arnold had recently betrayed the Americans, and Washington wanted to punish Arnold. So Champe’s mission was to pose as a deserter and traitor from the American side to the British. The hope was that he would eventually have the chance to meet Arnold. In doing so, he could study his behavior and determine the best time to kidnap, with the help of others, Arnold to take him back to territory controlled by the Americans. Arnold would then be put on trial.

It worked for a while. Champe showed up on the British side and eventually convinced them that he was a traitor. He met Benedict Arnold and was even put under Arnold’s command. He formed a plan to kidnap Arnold, but before he could carry it out, the British force he’d been assigned to was shipped out on a campaign.

I have never heard of Champe’s mission, but it is perhaps the most daring and interesting of the American Revolution.

Closing Recommendation

So I do think the book is worth reading, particularly if you are interested in the American Revolution, or even just enjoy watching Turn. My only complaints against it can be seen as positives: it is a quick read unencumbered by tons of historical detail, and so it holds one’s interest pretty well. Just start reading the book expecting it to be what it’s trying to be, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

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]]>4017http://micahcobb.com/blog/george-washingtons-secret-six-a-review/A Politician Admitted in 1909 That Some Laws Have Secret Purposeshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/micahcobb1/~3/cO8bCxwcDBM/
Sat, 25 Feb 2017 14:34:55 +0000http://micahcobb.com/blog/?p=4013I have been listening to the audiobook of Ari Berman’s Give Us the Ballot: The Struggle for Voting Rights in America, which so far has been interesting. I am aware of the deep injustices against African Americans that existed. But despite being exposed to the history–-and perhaps because I have been around people much of my life who, for ideological reasons, wanted to minimize the level of racial discrimination–-I was not aware of how blatant the voting discrimination was and how protracted the struggle against it has been. So Berman’s book has been a revelation for me.

In the book, Berman mentions a letter that I found appalling. And I thought it would be a good reminder for us today.

Politics has always been divisive. And that means that the partisan spirit leads one to be overly generous to the politicians we support and malicious towards those we oppose.

One way this partisan spirit manifests itself is in how we interpret the motives behind legislation. We are tempted to assume that the politicians we support are being straightforward with their legislative intent. We refuse to think that they would pass a law to achieve some secret motive. During the Bush Administration, the Republicans passed a bill outlawing online gambling. Many Republicans believed the Republican politicians’ claims that it was done to fight against gambling addiction. But this seemed to me at the time misleading, even though I was Republican. It was revealed that the law was pushed by the lobbyists for the casinos as protecting their financial interests. And the law had loopholes allowing online betting on horse races. I guess the Republicans were okay with gambling addicts gambling at home on horse races…just not on poker games.

Not only do we refuse to believe that “our side” would have secret motives behind legislation, we are certain that all the legislation behind the politicians we oppose have secret motives. The healthcare reforms are meant to secretly push us towards socialism. These laws aren’t about religious values but oppressing women. Etc.

But we should be convinced that both sides have secret motives. We should assume that some, maybe many, of the laws that both sides pass have some ulterior motive behind it. And one reason I made a note to look into the letter that Berman mentioned is because it is one of the clearest admissions of ulterior motives behind legislation.

Frederick Bromberg’s Admission of Ulterior Motives

Frederick Bromberg was an attorney and politician from Mobile, Alabama. He served in the Alabama legislature, was elected to the U.S. Congress, and also served as the President of the Alabama Bar Association. In 1909, he wrote an open letter to legislators in Alabama that was published in the Mobile Register (today he would have simply published it to Facebook). Blomberg was “expressing support for a pending bill to amend the Alabama Constitution explicitly to outlaw black office-holding.” This letter is an open admission of the ulterior motives of legislators. The letter was important to a 1980s court decision to change the way voting was done in Mobile since it admitted that some of the city’s voting laws were adopted with the intent to disenfranchise black voters. In fact, I’m going to quote the sections that are quoted in the legal opinion from that case. You can find the entire opinion here. (I’ve emphasized parts of this.)

Respectfully now recall to your mind that portion of my address as present [sic] of the state bar association, a copy of which I sent to you, which refers to the expediency of amending the state constitution so as to exclude negroes from holding elective offices in this state.

You know that it was the effort to obliterate the negro vote in the past which led to all of the methods of fraud perpetrated at the ballot boxes by sworn election officers in order to defeat the negro vote, which demoralized the growing generation of young men, and to cure which was the avowed purpose of the sections in the present state constitution regulating the franchise.

We have always, as you know, falsely pretended that our main purpose was to exclude the ignorant vote, when, in fact, we were trying to exclude, not the ignorant vote, but the negro vote.

The present measures are so framed that if honestly carried out they will not and cannot disfranchise the negro. If not honestly carried out sooner or later, probably sooner, a case will be made up having back of it competent counsel, which will go to the supreme court of the United States, and which will overturn the present methods of applying the registration laws.

The only safety of our people lies in availing themselves of their rights under the constitution of the United States to disqualify the negro from holding any elective office.

[…]

The counties of Dallas, Wilcox, Monroe, Marengo, Perry, Greene, Hale and others, composing the Black Belt of the state, will become increasingly black with increasing years, and the negro with intelligence, and property will demand and insist on his legal rights through the courts. Not only that, but ambitious men amongst them will avail themselves of their superior numbers in said counties to offer themselves as candidates for offices of power and profit. As surely as the war between the free and slave-holding states followed from the existence of slavery, just so surely will race war in this state follow the present condition of our laws; unless the remedial measure suggested above be adopted: the oldest of us will yet live to see my prophecy fulfilled.

At present the masses of the colored race are indifferent to the right to vote and still more indifferent to the right to hold office; by adopting remedial measures now we shall cause no discontent, because of the present apathy of our colored citizens.

This is fully recognized by all statesmen.

Curing Our Partisan Blindness

This should help cure us of our partisan blindness. I know it is a weak inference from one legislator from 150 years ago admitting to ulterior motives to the conclusion that all legislators have ulterior motives in what they do. And I really don’t want to make such an inference. I just think such a stark admission of a secret agenda behind legislation reminds us that it is possible. Elected officials on both sides of the aisle do this. Here is legislator, at the time influential and well-known, who admits to misleading people about the main purpose of the law. He publicly mislead his own supporters. I’m sure many of his supporters would have defended him.

But they were wrong.

And notice that he isn’t simply admitting that he mislead people. He is implicating his other legislators. A group of legislators mislead the public about the purpose of a law they passed.

Just like we deceive ourselves when we assume we are more intelligent than the people of the past, so we deceive ourselves when we think we are more virtuous than people of the past.

We must admit that there is more to the actions of politicians than meets the eye – especially the politicians we wholeheartedly support!

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In Book 3 of On the Free Choice of the Will, Augustine tackles a question that has troubled many throughout history: if God is in control of everything, then wouldn’t that make God the author of sin? Most of us have felt the force behind this line of thought. There are Biblical passages that seem to indicate that God was somehow the cause of men’s sinful actions. For example, in Acts 4:27-28, it seems that Pilate and the Jewish leaders are described as only doing what God had “predestined” for them to do. And, again, in Genesis 50:20, Joseph seems to imply that God intended good out of the evils that Joseph’s brothers did.

Are we to understand these passages as teaching that God–somehow!–caused the sins of these people? But doesn’t that make God the author of sin? And for those Christians who hold that God’s will is what has determined everything, then this question is particularly pressing for their theological views. (Though I have included the Acts 4 and Genesis 50 passage to try to draw everyone into this problem. Maybe you don’t think that God’s will determined everything, but you still think that some sinful actions were predetermined by God. So you still have the problem of avoiding how God is the author of sin.)By Antonio Rodríguez (1636 – 1691) – PainterDetails of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Augustine’s Attempt

Augustine has an interesting paragraph in 3.16 of On the Free Choice of the Will. He writes:

“Suppose you decide to blame sin on the Creator. You do clear the sinner, since he was simply following the decrees of his Creator; but if this line of defense succeeds, it turns out that the creature did not sin at all, so there is nothing to blame God for. Let us therefore praise the Creator if we can defend the sinner, and let us praise him if we cannot. For if the sinner is justly defended, he is no sinner; therefore, praise the Creator. And if the sinner cannot be defended, he is a sinner insofar as he turns away from the Creator; therefore, praise the Creator. So I find no way–indeed, I feel certain that there is no way–in which God our Creator can be blamed for our sins….”

Restating What Augustine Was Saying

Augustine, or at least the translation I am using, can be difficult to understand. So just in case you didn’t grasp the argument, I’ll state it more clearly. If you decide that God was the cause of someone’s sin, then this person is not truly responsible for his sin. He was just doing what God planned. In doing this, you shift the responsibility for the sin from the person to God; indeed, you might be blaming God in order to clear the other person of blame. (“It’s not really Pilate’s fault that he ordered Jesus’s death; God made him do it.”) And in doing so, you are claiming that the person did not sin. He carried out an action that he was predestined to do. The blame is with God.

But Augustine wants us to slow down. If we shift the blame to God, what are we blaming on God? You might say, “The person’s sin that God predestined him to do.” To which Augustine would reply, “What sin? Didn’t you conclude that since it was God’s fault and not the person’s fault, then the person didn’t sin?” And like a magician’s mind-bending card trick, we’ve lost track of something moments earlier we were certain was right before us–in plain sight! In shifting the blame for a person’s sinful action to God, the sin disappears.

If the sin isn’t the person’s fault but is God’s fault, then the person is not a sinner. But that means that, though God is responsible for the action-previously-thought-to-be-sinful, the action is not now sinful. So God is not the author of sin: He’s just the author of something we thought was sinful but wasn’t.

Does This Work?

Every time I read this argument, I have the same reaction I have to many of Augustine’s arguments: it’s clever–clearly the result of a mind more fertile than most in human history–but something seems off with it. Again, it seems more like a clever card trick than a substantial argument that removes the philosophical difficulty. I have the lingering feeling that if I just carefully flip through the cards in the deck and check Augustine’s sleeves, the missing card will be discovered. This problem cannot be this easily solved.

And I think I know why Augustine’s argument fails.

But I think you can see why from this parallel example. Imagine a military’s general commanded a soldier to execute an innocent civilian. Imagine also that the soldier has to obey the general’s commands and does not bear any responsibility for actions he does when following commands. Later, in a war crimes tribunal, the general’s attorney argues like this: “If the general did not give the command, then it is the soldier’s fault, not his. So he is free of guilt. But if the general did give the command, then the soldier is not guilty of evildoing. He was just following orders. But if the soldier is not guilty of an evil action, then the general is not guilty, since his order to the soldier did not result in an evil action.”

I think we would all recognize that the general’s defense is not convincing. It should be rejected. But why?

I think it is easiest to see when you look at Augustine’s argument in a more formalized manner. He says:

If God causes a person to sin, then that person did not sin.

If the person does not sin, then God is not guilty of causing a person to sin (since the person didn’t actually sin).

If God is not guilty of causing a person to sin, then he has done nothing wrong when causing the person to do the supposed sin.

Therefore, if God is the cause of actions we initially regarded as sinful, then God is not guilty of anything sinful.

What would we want to reject? I think we would want to reject Premise 3. It is not the case that God has done nothing wrong if the action he causes is not regarded as a sin. It might be that he didn’t cause a sin if a person has to have (libertarian) free will to sin. The person did not have free will but was predestined to do the action by God. So the person is not a sinner and so God isn’t the author of sin

But that does not mean that he hasn’t done anything that is not wrong. For the underlying, objective problem that would lead us to regard the person’s action as a sin (the harm caused to others, disrespecting the person’s value as a human, violating human rights, etc.) still remains. And surely it is wrong to cause someone else to do something with one of these qualities. We might not call what the person did sinful, so we would not accuse the one who caused the action of causing a sin. But we could still consider him sinful (or merely wrong) in causing the action – even though we would not properly say that he caused a sin. He sinned because he did something evil; he didn’t sin because he caused a sin.

Likewise the general in the earlier illustration is guilty of causing an evil to be done; it’s not that he is guilty of making someone else guilty of doing evil (if you think that the soldier was not guilty of evil since he did not have the freedom not to do it).

Conclusion

Augustine’s argument is certainly interesting, but it is not convincing. We should want to shield God from the claim that he is a sinner or causes sin. But Augustine’s way of avoiding that fails. It fails in an interesting way: it denies that God is the author of sin by making him a sinner. That just won’t work. The difficulties that surround human free will, moral responsibility, and God’s responsibility for evil still remain.

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James K. A. Smith’s book, How (Not) to be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor, is the most insightful and interesting book I have read in the last few months. And though I don’t consume books at the rate of Kevin DeYoung or Tyler Cowen, I do read a lot of books. So for a book to grab me the way this one did and clearly set itself off from the others says a lot about the book.

This book, as the subtitle betrays, is not a straightforward presentation of Smith’s own views; rather, he writes to explain the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, whose depth is said to be hidden behind inaccessible prose and terminology. But Smith does a good job (as far as I can tell — I am only familiar with Taylor’s reputation, not his work) of presenting Charles Taylor’s ideas from A Secular Age. And the way that Taylor’s theory explains so much about our society and its relationship to faith. It accounts for dichotomies and conflicts that other, more simple (and less erudite?) accounts cannot account for.

I am in the process of creating a sermon series based on the ideas I have found. I am unsure, but I expect to be working on this series for a few more months before I am ready to preach the sermons from it. But until then, I want to share some of the gems I have found in this book.

Secularism, Christianity, and Apologetics

One aspect of modern Christianity that Smith, channeling Taylor, brings into sharp relief is how thoroughly modern and secular it is. We Christians often pose as if we are the valiant defenders of older values and beliefs that secularism wants to toss aside. But so often we have sublimated much of modernism into our lives and use its assumptions as our starting place.

One area where this is clearly evident is in some areas of Christian apologetics, which positions itself as the core defender of the faith, but so often borrows some secular assumptions and methodologies as its starting place. Of course, reading around in Kierkegaard’s writings about a decade ago alerted me to some of it. But Smith’s work was a good reminder.

A lengthy Quotation From Smith

“Taylor offers an analysis of the apologetic strategy that emerges in the midst of these shifts — not only as a response to them, but already as a reflection of them. In trying to assess just how the modern social imaginary came to permeate a wider culture, Taylor focuses on Christian responses to this emerging humanism and the ‘eclipses’ we’ve just noted. What he finds is that the responses themselves have already conceded the game; that is, the responses to this diminishment of transcendence already accede to it in important ways (Taylor will later call this ‘pre-shrunk religion’ [p. 226]). As he notes, ‘the great apologetic effort called forth by this disaffection itself narrowed its focus so drastically. It barely invoked the saving action of Christ, nor did it dwell on the life of devotion and prayer, although the seventeenth century was rich in this. The arguments turned exclusively on demonstrating God as Creator, and showing his Providence’ (p. 225). What we get in the name of ‘Christian’ defenses of transcendence, then, is ‘a less theologically elaborate faith’ that, ironically, paves the way for exclusive humanism. God is reduced to a Creator and religion is reduced to morality (p. 225). The ‘deism’ of providential deism bears many marks of the ‘theism’ that is often defended in contemporary apologetics. The particularities of specifically Christian beliefs are diminished to try to secure a more generic deity — as if saving some sort of transcendence will suffice.

“When Taylor broached this theme earlier, he specifically noted that the ‘religion’ that is defended by such apologetic strategies has little to do with religion in terms of worship: ‘…Moreover, there didn’t seem to be any essential place for the worship of God, other than through the cultivation of reason and constancy.’ What we see, then, is the ‘relegation of worship as ultimately unnecessary and irrelevant’ (p. 117). This is the scaled-down religion that will be rejected ‘by Wesley from one direction, and later secular humanists from the other’ (p. 226).

“…And it is precisely in this context, when we adopt a ‘disengaged stance,’ that the project of theodicy ramps up; thinking we’re positioned to see everything, we now expect an answer to whatever puzzles us, including the problem of evil. Nothing should be inscrutable.” (p. 51-2)

The Problems with the Minimal Defensible Unit

Taylor’s view on this is significant and on target for how apologetics is often attempted. In our attempt to defend our faith, providing a “reason for the hope within” to everyone we encounter, we have sometimes done more damage than good. Because our faith (both in the sense of our personal conviction and in the sense of a set of beliefs) becomes diluted, culled of any aspect we might find difficult to decisively defend.

In effect, much of Christian apologetics is forced to reduce Christianity to its minimal defensible unit (my phrase) in order to, well, defend it to the skeptics around us. But you get a Christianity that is close to losing some of the aspects needed for Christianity. (How many apologists argue for and talk about God in a way that leaves out the triune nature of the Christian God?) And you get a Christianity whose emphases are different from those of historic Christianity. The exciting, life-changing bits of Christianity aren’t the narrow set of historical stories and statements of Jesus whose historicity can be strongly defended. The Christianity that results is often one that our predecessors in the faith would not have recognized.

And so many apologists leave their arguments with a great gap between what they have defended and what historic Christianity. Or, if they do argue for these parts, the quality of the arguments for these tenants is often much lower than the quality of the arguments for more generic teachings. One famous apologist has compelling arguments for the existence of a Creator of some type, but his arguments that this Creator is personal lacks the rigor of the other arguments.

So maybe we should take care not to do apologetics that is cut off from the rich theology of historic Christianity. Though I admit that some of these teachings are not the easiest ones to defend, but, as Taylor notes, ours is not a ‘disengaged stance.’ We believe we cannot know the answer to many of the problems, and some of the reasons and justification for beliefs or commands have not yet been laid bare. But that is the nature of our faith. When we deny this to better answer the skeptic’s questions, we end up pushing aside many aspects of Christianity, losing it in the meantime.

And if we lose Christianity in the process of defending it, what are we really defending?

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]]>4005http://micahcobb.com/blog/how-apologetics-can-diminish-christianity/Does 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 Teach Purgatory?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/micahcobb1/~3/12hZizf0DBQ/
Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:00:34 +0000http://micahcobb.com/blog/?p=3998Recently, some of my friends were troubled by 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. They did not understand the passage, and they thought it seemed like Paul’s teaching in this passage was very close to the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. So I decided to work through this passage to see how to understand it. A careful understanding of the passage shows that it is not teaching the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory.

1 Corinthians 3:10-15 (NIV)

10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. 14If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

Context

Notice what is going on in chapter 3. The Corinthian church has divided over which “church leader” they follow. In 1 Cor. 3:1-4, Paul accuses them of this. He directly says that this is immature of them. Their division is a spiritual problem. But he then moves to address the problem directly in verses 5-9. He is continuing to discuss the topic he addressed 1 Cor. 1:10-17. So Paul is thinking about ministry workers and how to appropriately view their work.

That context is important for when we get to verses 10-15. Paul is not talking about the everyday deeds of each Christian. He is talking about the Kingdom work of ministry workers.

To underline this, notice that in 3:9, Paul emphasizes that the worker does not matter; God matters. Each worker has his role and God provides their work with success. Paul then says this in verse 9, “For we are God’s co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s fields, God’s building.” He is stressing that the individual ministry leader (Paul, Apollos, etc.) does not matter; they are merely laborers in God’s farm.

To clearly see that Paul is not talking about every Christian in 3:10-15, pay close attention to verse 9. Who are the co-workers? Every Christian? No. Apollos and Paul are the co-workers. How does Paul refer to the congregation in this passage? As the fields and buildings in and among whom the laborers (the ministry leaders) work.

So let’s go into 1 Cor. 3:10ff. understanding that Paul is talking about Christian leaders and the humble, God-centered perspective that we should see their work.

Purgatory

I don’t want to confuse things, but I’m not just trying to explain 1 Cor. 3:10-15. I am trying to explain why I don’t think that it is a description of the Catholic teaching on Purgatory.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1030) defines Purgatory this way: “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.”

Notice a few things about this:

This applies to most Christians. Most Christians die without being imperfectly purified. That’s not explicit in this quotation, but my understanding is that the Catholic Church believes most Christians will go through Purgatory.

The fire is a fire of purification of the person.

Understanding 1 Cor. 3:10-15

So, with the context and the Catholic teaching on Purgatory before us, let’s go through 1 Cor. 3:10-15 to understand it better.

By the grace God has given me: Paul has a broad understanding of grace. Grace can give forgiveness, but it can also empower. In Romans 12:6ff., Paul uses “grace” to talk about the “spiritual gifts” (as we might call them) that God gives to Christians. In Eph. 4:7, he uses it again to talk about spiritual gifts, or, more accurately, ministry roles. Specifically, he talks about leadership roles like a prophet, an elder, etc. So when Paul says “by the grace God has given me,” he’s not directly talking about forgiveness. He’s talking about the role he was given as an apostle.

I laid a foundation as a wise builder: Paul means that he planted that congregation. Paul was the one who started the Corinthian church through his missionary efforts. Paul uses this same language — laying a foundation as a builder to talk about beginning a church — in Romans 15:20. Paul was a wise builder in starting the Corinthian church.

and someone else is building on it. In other words, Paul started a work that he was not finish. He was leaving it to others to do. Others were tending to the Corinthian congregation.

But each one should build with care. Obviously, whoever is building, that is, whoever is working in the Corinthian church to grow it and spiritually mature it, needs to do so carefully. They are working at God’s work. Ministry leaders should never take lightly the responsibility they have to work among God’s people.

11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. Why should the workers take care? It’s because they there is already one foundation laid. They should neither undermine Christ or build anything on top of such a great foundation that does not belong on it. Paul has already (in 1 Corinthians 1) argued that the divisions arising in the church at Corinth were actually reflections on Jesus Christ. (“Was Christ divided?” Paul asked.)

12If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, Again, Paul is talking about the work of Christian ministers, people working in the church for God. Since he is using the metaphor of building, he keeps with that metaphor to describe how many workers can build onto the foundation. And their contributions are of different types and different qualities. (Remember that what is being built here is a local congregation.)

13their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. The work is of a different quality. But that is not always obvious. We know this from experience. It is sometimes hard to see if Christians ministers and leaders are building up the church or harming the church. Sometimes the truth of what the minister is doing is hidden within their own hearts, their own intentions. But Paul writes that there will be a time when the worth of everyone’s work will be revealed: the Day (of Judgment). Now, let’s keep in mind that the Corinthian church is divided among people following different leaders. And Paul reminds them that every Christian leader will have their work revealed. It won’t be hidden. We will see what it is truly worth, what they have actually accomplished.

It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. How will it be revealed? With fire. In the Bible, the imagery of fire is used often. Sometimes fire destroys. Sometimes it punishes. Sometimes it purifies. Here, the fire destroys. It doesn’t destroy the worker, though — it destroys their work! Again, follow Paul’s train of thought. Many people contribute to the building up of the church, but the quality of their work differs. Some minister’s work is not a good quality. It doesn’t help the church. And that will be revealed (and their work destroyed) on the Day of Judgment.How will it be revealed? With fire. In the Bible, the imagery of fire is used often. Sometimes fire destroys. Sometimes it punishes. Sometimes it purifies. Here, the fire tests. The valuable materials survive. The poor materials are burned up. It doesn’t destroy the worker, though — it destroys their work! Again, follow Paul’s train of thought. Many people contribute to the building up of the church, but the quality of their work differs. Some minister’s work is not a good quality. It doesn’t help the church. And that will be revealed (and their work destroyed) on the Day of Judgment.

How does this work? I’m not sure. Paul could mean that the negative effects of a bad or bad-intentioned minister will be destroyed on the last day. The church will be purified of the effects of these ministers’ labors. The good quality work of a minister survives for eternity; the bad quality work of a minister is destroyed.

14If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. It’s the good quality work of a minister that gets rewarded. The mature Christians in the church. The new converts. The close community. The bad work (for example, divisiveness) will be destroyed, and the minister who did that work will not be rewarded for it.

15If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. The bad minister’s work gets burned up, and so he will suffer the loss of what he build. His work will not last for eternity. But the builder will be saved. But he will be saved even though his work was burned up; he escaped those flames.The bad minister’s work gets burned up, and so he will suffer the loss of what he build. His work will not last for eternity. But the builder will be saved. But he will be saved even though his work was burned up; he escaped those flames. The flames aren’t flames that are purifying him or even testing him. The imagery seems to be of a worker standing among his work when his work (a room of a house, say) is consumed by flames. He runs out and is saved from the flames burning his work. It is not imagery of the worker being purified by passing through flames.

How This Differs From Purgatory

So let’s notice how this differs from purgatory. I’ll just enumerate them so that it will be easier to reference each point.

The trial by fire is something that Christian leaders (or minister, elders, etc.) go through. Paul does not indicate that it is for every Christian. That differs from the Catholic doctrine on Purgatory, because Purgatory is not limited just to Christian leaders.

Some people endure the fire of 1 Cor. 3:10-15, but nothing is burned up. It’s only the bad work that is burned up. In Purgatory, everyone in it is purged of their unholiness. That’s not happening here.

The fire of 1 Cor. 3:10-15 is dealing with ministry work, not unholiness. Though the bad work might be caused by unholiness, what is purged is not the unholiness of the worker but the poor quality work that was the result of their labors. That’s different than Purgatory, where it is the individual’s unholiness that is purged. The British scholar C. K. Barrett wrote, “There is thus no hint in the context that the fire has the effect of purifying an unworthy workman.” (First Epistle to the Corinthians, 89)

This is not as clear, because the Catholic Church has not dogmatically declared exactly when Purgatory would be. I have heard Catholic apologists claim that Purgatory could take place in a moment — in the blink of the eye — on Judgment Day. But their practices at various times in history (the selling of indulgences, for example) show that Purgatory is often thought of as happening now. But the fires that Paul talks about in 1 Cor. 3:10-15 are simply on Judgment Day.

Conclusion

I don’t know if what I have written fully explains 1 Cor. 3:10-15. But I hope it is enough for you to see that what Paul writes cannot be used as support for the Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory.

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